Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd S. Shapley shared the 2012 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for their work on matching supply and demand for everything from single men and women to organ donors and their recipients…

Shapley, 89, designed theoretical constructs and algorithms to study and compare different matching methods. Roth, 60, built on his work, using experimental economics and market design to solve real-world problems, including matching 20,000 doctors annually with U.S. hospitals during their first year of employment and 90,000 teens with New York City high schools.

Roth, who has been a professor of economics and business administration at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, since 1998, is leaving the school at the end of the year for a new position at Stanford University, where he is currently a visiting professor of economics. Shapley is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles.– Bloomberg